Monday, February 10, 2014

Homemade Laundry soap

We ran out of laundry soap and I've been making our own for quite a while now. It cleans just as good. The only downfall (if you want to consider it a downfall) that I can tell is that your clothes don't come out smelling like flowers. They do however come out clean and if you add enough essential oil to your mix then it smells nice too.

Here is my recipe for the homemade laundry soap. It costs pennies compared to the brand name detergents.

What you will need:
1 five gallon bucket
1 Bar of Fels Naptha soap (this can be found in the laundry section of most stores. I got mine at Walmart)
Washing Soda (not baking soda) (this is also found in the laundry section)
Borax (also known as 20 Mule Washing Borax) (also found guess where?? Yep! The laundry section!)

How to make it:
1. Grate the Fels Naptha bar of soap with a cheese grater into a large pot. Add a gallon or so of water depending on how large your pot is. You can use less if your pot is smaller.
2. Heat this soap on the stove, stirring occasionally until the soap melts completely.
3. While the soap on the stove is melting, measure out 1 cup each of the Washing Soda and the Borax into the 5 gallon bucket.
4. Add about 3 1/2 gallons of very hot water to your bucket and stir.
5. When the Fels Naptha soap is melted, pour this into the bucket which already has the powdered ingredients and stir.
6. At this point add any essential oils and mix it all up well. I used Peppermint oil because that's what we had available. The grandpa was threatening that he might eat his underwear if it smelled too much like peppermint (haha!)
7. Let this mixture sit overnight. It will turn into a thick gel-like goo. Mix it really well until smooth. This works good with a beater that has a very long handle, a paint mixer or a long handled spoon and some muscle!

That's it folks! I use about a cup for each load. If the clothes are dirty or stinky, I add extra just for good measure but one cup of this homemade laundry soap does a great job!